The Black Oyster-catcher 



Left to themselves, the birds are no Quakers, and the antics of 

 courtship are both noisy and amusing. A certain duet, especially, con- 

 sists of a series of awkward bowings and bendings, in which the neck is 

 stretched to the utmost and arched over stiffly into a pose as grotesque as 

 one of Cruikshank's drawings, — the whole to an accompaniment of 

 amorous clucks and wails. 



The eggs of the 

 Black Oyster-catcher, 

 normally three in num- 

 ber, are oftenest placed 

 in the hollow of a bare 

 rock, lined with a pint 

 or so of rock-flakes, lab- 

 oriously gathered. 



In default, appar- 

 ently, of suitable stone- 

 chips, the bird will util- 

 ize bits of shell, rounded 

 pebbles, or, still more 

 exceptionally, grass. The 

 use of pebbles serves to 

 connect, in thought at 

 least, the chip-lined 

 nests with those instan- 

 ces, comparatively few 

 in number, where the 

 eggs are deposited upon 

 unmodified beach grav- 

 el. One who has seen 

 the Oyster-catcher's 

 eggs lying in coarse grav- 

 el, where to the protec- 

 tive coloration, stone- 

 gray with black spots 

 and blotches, is added 

 the almost perfect assim- 

 ilation of form to that 



of rounded pebbles, cannot escape the conclusion that this is the typical, 

 or ancestral, situation. That the Oyster-catchers now resort to the 

 upper reaches of barren reefs, or to the exposed shoulders of the more 

 ambitious rocks, may be due to intervening geological changes, resulting 

 in a relative scarcity of suitable beaches; or it may be due to the increase 



Taken in Washington 



Photo by the Author 



YOUNG OYSTERCATCHER, HIDING 



fJS 1 



